Denafrips Pontus II Clicks Or Static?
There have been some who have reported clicks or static occasionally with their Denafrips Pontus II DAC units. And there is a test measurement review of the Pontus II 12th on the golden sound website talking about the following:
"When DACs oversample, they can sometimes encounter a situation where the reconstructed/interpolated waveform goes above 0dBfs (the maximum possible digital value)."
"The Pontus 2 is susceptible to intersample overs, and unfortunately, in a particularly bad way."
"The Pontus 2 does not clip, but instead when a sample value reaches above the maximum, it ‘wraps around’ to the minimum negative value, causing a huge sudden transient which will be very audible and may appear as crackling/popping."
Has anyone with a Pontus II encountered this anomaly when playing CDs? If so, can you elaborate about that? I am aware that the Pontus II can be firmware upgraded, so if this is an occasional issue, it could be eliminated with an upgrade.
@fastcat95, maybe they have corrected it on the 12th. I tried my Pontus II with 2 cd transports and 4 cd players, using 5 digital cables, with different terminations, bnc-rca, rca-rca, aes/ebu, and the problem is there. Once a day in some combinations and once in every song in others! ...but looove the sound :) Enjoy your 12th :) |
A couple of related notes. While it is possible that the problem has finally been resolved, it was never apparent in the experience of all users, only (I would estimate) a relatively small percentage. So the fact that some users of the newest version have yet to encounter any problem, while encouraging, is far from being definitive. Secondly, as I have mentioned previously, it would be odd for Denafrips to have found a (likely hardware) fix for the issue, yet make no mention of the fact if it was installed in this new version. Why would they not proudly – and loudly – announce a successful resolution? The only reason that I can think of would be because it would alert unaware customers to the fact that the previous generations were vulnerable to the problem, and Denafrips does not want to engage in any expensive recall action. One other interesting note. As I have also mentioned previously, Denafrips chose to basically ignore the fact that they advertised at least some of their previous DACs as having NOS capability, when that was false. Much like the skipping issue, I believe that the company ran an internal cost benefit analysis, and decided to gamble that most owners would either remain ignorant of the false advertising, or would not care much, as any sound differences were likely very small. I mention the above because this appears in the marketing for the Pontus 12th:
Now, that is obviously good news for those who have purchased, or will in the future purchase one of these units. But I would argue that it also confirms precisely what I have described, namely that the previous versions were not "true" NOS capable. That the company was willing to falsely advertise at least some of its products, even after they were publicly exposed as not being NOS capable, is in my view very damning, and that behavior would give me pause in purchasing products from Denafrips in the future. |
I would suspect that Denafrips would keep a low profile about having implemented a fix for the click and pop issue... for obvious reasons. As to the NOS issue, and the fact that Denafrips now touts it as a TRUE NOS; when I listen to the true NOS with my Pontus II 12th, it does not strike me as being nearly as "correct" as the slow oversampling filter (I realize that opinions may vary). So, unless there were a recording that had some sort of unusual benefit from the NOS, I will just ignore the NOS issue. The NOS seems to do a slight blurring, and makes things sound more forgiving - which might be worthwhile with harsh sounding recordings. |
FWIW, I have a Pontus II (non 12th). I use mainly the Coax input and the I2S over HDMI input. I do not use the oversampling modes. No clicks at all in the 6 months or so I have owned it. True NOS or not, IMHO, this thing sounds wonderful, at least in the context of my system. If I could wish for anything, it would be a slightly larger soundstage, although this is very source material dependent. |
I have had my Pontus II nearly two years and have never experienced any pops or clicks. I run mine in NOS mode and use a Coax connection to my CD transport and Toslink to my streamer. I wanted to connect my Pontus simultaneously to both my McIntosh Integrated and my Topping headphone amp. Alvin at Vinshine stated that using both the XLR and RCA outputs simultaneously would seriously degrade performance. Alvin proposed a work around and sent me a design of a custom “Y” cable which connected to the XLR outs on the Pontus and split off into dual RCA connections to both amplifiers. I had the folks at Morrow Audio build this custom cable to Alvin’s design and it has performed flawlessly. I wanted to mention this performance degradation Caveat to anyone who wants to connect their Pontus to dual amps although it probably has nothing to do with this pop and click issue. I have been extremely happy with my Pontus and am very sorry to hear that this great product has been marred with this annoying defect.
|
